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Monthly Archives: May 2018

Regular readers of this blog will know that Annabel Karmel has been a bit of a guru to me since I became a mother. Because whilst I didn’t open a single other manual on motherhood, I religiously followed her recipes and tips when it came to weaning my first baby. And when I had a second and third baby, I reopened those books and revisited those much-loved recipes all over again.

But as much as I love Annabel’s cookery books, I don’t always have them to hand. I’ve been stood in the supermarket racking my brains about the ingredients I need for certain recipes. And whilst away on holiday or travelling with the kids, I have wished that I’d had the foresight to take a picture of the recipes on my phone so I could refer back to them when preparing food for the kids.

This is why I was excited to hear about the newly launched Annabel Karmel Healthy Baby and Toddler Recipes App, which includes a selection of her most popular recipes. The app is organised into neat sections so you can find the recipe you need (or browse for inspiration) – and when you click into each dish, there are ingredients and step by step instructions. You can add each recipe to a handy planner so that you are organised for the week ahead – and you can add ingredients to a shopping list section, so you have everything you need when you head to the supermarket. It’s well designed and easy to navigate – and means that I have my favourite recipes at the click of a button.

But do you know what? I don’t always have time to cook for the kids from scratch – and on the nights I’m in a mega hurry (which happens a lot), I’m a fan of the range of Annabel Karmel Chilled Toddler Meals too.

With dishes including ‘Lovely Beef Lasagna’, ‘Mild Chicken Tikka and Rice’ and ‘Tasty Spaghetti and Meatballs’, not only can the individual meals be stored in the freezer and prepared in a matter of minutes, they also contain good, wholesome, and nutritious ingredients. Each meal contains up to three of their five a day, are low in salt, and contain no artificial additives or preservatives So despite the fact I’m popping a meal in a microwave for their dinner, I am totally reassured that they’re getting a dose of goodness too.

So there may be nights when I flick through an Annabel Karmel book or open her app and knock up a dish from scratch – but there will also be nights when I reach into the fridge or freezer and pull out a chilled meal in a hurry too. And that is what I believe is called balance…

Find out more about the Annabel Karmel Healthy Baby and Toddler Recipes App here.

And find out more about the Annabel Karmel Chilled Toddler Meals here.

When I was 11 years old, a friend wrote me a letter and stuffed it into my hand in the cloakroom outside our classroom. As I unfurled the crumpled paper and started to read the words scrawled in navy blue fountain pen on the faint ruled lines inside, my breath caught in my chest. The world suddenly stood still. And whilst I can’t remember the content, I do remember they were spiteful and personal. She didn’t like me – and lying in bed that evening, I sobbed sad, unhappy tears as the words replayed in my mind.

I genuinely can’t remember the circumstances surrounding that letter. I may very well have written to her first or done something unkind to prompt it. We may have spat words at each other beforehand, both determined that we were right. It was long before the days of being interested in boys – but those were the days when stealing someone else’s ‘best friend’ was amongst the worst thing you could do. So looking back, with not a shred of memory about what the letter contained, that would be my guess. I guess I stole her friend. I guess it stung. And I guess she felt better as her fountain pen scratched the paper as she wrote.

I have no idea what happened to that letter. If it didn’t immediately get thrown in the bin, it probably ended up in a box somewhere, long forgotten with the years slowly fading the ink.

I do remember who wrote it though – and 26 years later, we are good friends. We meet regularly, putting the world to rights over strong coffees and glasses of wine. We attended each other’s hen do’s and weddings. Our children play together. Our husbands stand over barbecues together. She’s part of my past, my present, my future.

I doubt she remembers writing that letter.

I hope she doesn’t remember writing that letter.

But imagine if we’d been born 25 years later. Imagine if we were 11 years old now, with phones in our hands, computer screens in our homes. Imagine if she’d typed that letter with angry taps, pressing ‘send’ before her mother called her down for dinner and she checked between bites that the message had been delivered so that she knew the words were playing in my mind.

Imagine if, 25 years later, I could look back at a stream of messages and find it right there at the very beginning.

To be reminded whenever I wanted to be reminded.

And imagine if she could’ve written it publicly and tagged me – or, with a sense of 11-year-old injustice and anger, I could’ve shared it with our peers, our parents, and the world.